Right after the launch of Skyrim I read of some people finding that Morrowind and Cyrodil were accessible via a no clip method, though they weren't fully fleshed out. I thought at that time that maybe they were planning a MMORPG and had already started creating the seamless world beyond Skyrim's borders.

Originally Posted by Xian
Right after the launch of Skyrim I read of some people finding that Morrowind and Cyrodil were accessible via a no clip method, though they weren't fully fleshed out. I thought at that time that maybe they were planning a MMORPG and had already started creating the seamless world beyond Skyrim's borders.

For those concerned about the single player games. I don't see how this will affect them. This is a seperate studio. Todd Howard's group doesn't have anything to do with it. As far as the game is concerned, it sounds like it could be fun. I haven't played a MMO since Everquest. The idea of traveling to all of the providences sounds pretty fun. As long as they don't screw up the lore.

The only MMO I ever liked was Everquest back in the day. All the others I tried since are crappy and boring, and basically all the same. Havent played a MMO in years, and nothing I have seen has changed my opinion or caught my interest
The mention of PvP is already a huge turn off, if that is what this is focused on, *yawn* not interested. (I always hated PvP in MMOs, it caters to the lowest, youngest, most obnoxious common denominator and attracts that type of crowd)

Originally Posted by DarNoor
Well, my mind has changed since going over some of the details and looking at some screenshots. It looks very generic. And i have a feeling they are going to throw the lore right out the window.

What do you mean, "generic"? I can pretty much tell the province in which the screenshot was taken based on the style of vegetation and architecture present. Morrowind pretty much looks like Morrowind, Black Marsh looks like how I imagined Black Marsh to be etc. The exploration of the entire continent is, in my view, along with expanding the 2nd era lore, this game's strongest point.

As an Elder Scrolls fan, I'm very excited to see what they bring to the table with the MMO. I'm not really an MMO guy though, but I would make an exception for an Elder Scrolls game possibly, depending on how it plays. I think the potential for being great is there though, like others have mentioned expanding the 2nd era lore while getting to explore the entire continent of Tamriel is a very interesting prospect. I hope they succeed.

Originally Posted by Xian
Right after the launch of Skyrim I read of some people finding that Morrowind and Cyrodil were accessible via a no clip method, though they weren't fully fleshed out. I thought at that time that maybe they were planning a MMORPG and had already started creating the seamless world beyond Skyrim's borders.
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Those ares are just for visual effect ant not scaled the same as skyrim (they're much smaller - for example cyrodil is about 1/2 size. They're also not navemeshed and not quite all the landmass of tamriel is mapped out even. Also the MMO will use the hero engine and had started development with its own 250 person team in a sepearte studio in 2007 was in early work on skyrim with their own team. I don't see how the oddly scale and rough landmass would be of any help considering they use different engines and I imagine the MMO people aren't going to go with a blocking incomplete map with skyrim about out of scale with the rest of the provicences by 2-5 times.

Originally Posted by GothicGothicness
I guess it might be another cheap attempt at selling an MMO because of a brand….

Well it's certainly not a "cheap" attempt, in the sense that they have had a team of 250 working on this since 2007.

The folks assembled on their team seem to be quite knowledgeable with a lot of experience with various previous MMOs, such as Dark Age of Camelot, Ultima Online, Star Trek Online, Tabula Rasa, even one guy who was a designer for pen and paper games at TSR back in the day.

Originally Posted by Sergorn
(they actually had a KOTOR3 in development internally after KOTOR2 and they cancelled it)n

Any source on that?

—

I'd just like to interject here and point out that I'm not going to say anything to spoil the mood, Chief. I'll just float here and watch. Don't mind me, just sitting here, floating and watching, that's me.

Unfortunately the original source on all this information is a book - which is of course not availible in preview mode through goodle. In the he designer and the concept art is in book too. It sounds like they were in the pre-production process as they were working were relatively early in - since they started this pre-prudction before KOTOR 2 was even out yet. I suppose that made them an easier project to cut too since they were so early on.

They cancelled it when they laid off about half their work force and consoilidated to teams on other projects (Battlefront and a few others I think.)

-Releasing 2013 for PC/Mac
-Developed by ZeniMax Online Studios
-MMORPG
-250 Person Team
-Started development in 2007
-"This time, saving the world from the awakening of ancient evil is only the beginning. What happens when hundreds or thousands of prophesied heroes all think that they should be Emperor?"
-The game is fully voice acted
-Third person perspective
-The game uses a hotbar to activate skills like other traditional MMOs
-Visually it looks like other Hero Engine MMOs like SWTOR
-The general art style is kind of like RIFT or Everquest 2
-You can't be a werewolf or vampire
-Crafting, alchemy, and soul stones will exist in an unrevealed form
-There will be Daedric Princes like Molag Bal, the primary antagonist, and Vaermina, "whose sphere of influence extends to the dream world and the nightmares of mortals", along with some unnamed others
-Constellations will be in the game a la Mundus stones (which work like guardian stones) and also give the answer to things like block puzzles where you step on the blocks in a certain order
-Tons of towns ranging from Imperial City, Windhelm, Daggerfall, Sentinel, Mournhold, Ebonheart, Elden Root, Shornhelm, Evermore, Riften, and a lot more
-Radiant AI will not be present
-There will be mounts, but no flying mounts
-Fast travel exists in the game in the form of wayshrines, which are also your ressurection point, and you can teleport from one wayshrine to any other wayshrine you have already visited
-There most likely won't be dragons
-Sneaking will be in the game, but how it is implemented is undecided
-They're not talking about pets right now
-There will be no player housing
-There will be no NPC romances or marriage
-"It needs to be comfortable for people who are coming in from a typical massively multiplayer game that has the same control mechanisms, but it also has to appeal to Skyrim players."
-Features most of Tamriel including Skyrim, Morrowind, Summerset Isle, and Elseweyr.
-"Not all provinces are included in their entirety; Zenimax Online is keeping large areas inaccessible to save them for use as expansion content. Nonetheless, every major area is represented to some extent."
-As an example, Windhelm is fully implemented, but Winterhold and the mages' college won't be in at launch.
-There are three player factions:
—Ebonheart Pact: The Nords, Dunmer, and Argoninans
—Aldmeri Dominion: Altmer, Bosmer, and Khajit
—Daggerfall Covenant: Bretons, Redguard, and Orcs
-"Recreateing the freedom Elder Scrolls players expect within the World of Warcraft-style mechanics Zenimax Online is using for this MMO would be impossible without changing the way that players interact with the world."
-As such, the game uses a hubless design
-For example, you don't necessarily pick up a quest to do the following, but if you kill all the necromancers in an undead barrow, a shade you free at the end will reward you.
-However, to help you find these events, various NPCs you talk to will tell you where they are happening and put a marker pointing them on your map, which is obviously totally different than receiving a quest.
-Not all quests will have NPCs that indicate where they are
-The game uses MMORPG genre standards such as classes, experience points, and other traditional MMORPG progression mechanics, but they try to present it "around the core fantasy presented by traditiona Elder Scrolls games" such as traveling around and righting wrongs or seeking riches
-The game world is very large relative to Skyrim
-You can explore almost anything you can see
-the game is set 1000 years in the past
-You can't master every discipline
-The imperials are an enemy to all three factions, lead by the noble Tharn family and the King of Worms, Mannimarco, and are hatching a plot to take over all of Tamriel
-But BEHOLD, Mannicmarco is scheming with Daedric prince Molag Bal to take over the world behind the Tharn's back
-Also, your soul has already been stolen by Molag Bal, which is the reason you can come back from death over and over again, and the starting plot is that you're fighting Molag Bal to get your soul back from him
-Hitting the level cap takes about 120 hours
-Each faction has their own leveling content
-An example quest is the story of Camlorn, where you have to stop evil werewolves who have their eyes set on conquest. First, you have to do a "standard MMO kill and collection quest" to sto ghosts from attacking some mages and soldiers. The ghosts are reliving a battle that the werewolf leader was in. You summon a ghost to find out what's going on, and the ghost tells you to wear her dead husband's armor to re-experience the battle he died in. You then get transported hundreds of years into the past to fight this battle. During this battle, you can choose to save the dead man's wife or to pursue the Werewolf leader. ZeniMax chooses to save the man's wife, who then tells you that the Werewolf leader is weak to fire. This information is helpful when you fight him, but you don't actually need to do this quest before fighting the werewolf leader if you don't want to. Basically, you can skip parts of quest chains if you want, but you get some benefit for playing the whole thing. Also, whenever you go back to the town you just saved, everything there hails you as a hero.
-The game features three faction PvP where you fight to take over keeps and use trebuchets and other siege weapons to help do it. At the high end, you can have 100 v 100 battles. There are also farms and mines you can try to take over. Mots of this happens in Cyrodiil where your goal is to take over and hold the Imperial City to get faction wide bonuses for it. If you have played Dark Age of Camelot, this probably sounds familiar. For those who haven't, essentially the entire zone is a giant PvP area will all sorts of points of interest.
-The most accomplished PvP player on your faction becomes emperor whenever you take over the capital
-When you take over Cyrodiil, you will be able to adventure in it as a hostile city a la Kvatch
-The game will have raids and heroic modes for its dungeons as end game content in addition to faction PvP
-There is also balanced PvP for people who prefer eSports
-The game will also have high end public dungeons
-Public dungeons are essentially instances that aren't actually instanced, so anyone can be in them, so imagine a World of Warcraft dungeon that featured everyone on the server in the area instead of just your party
-There are standard instanced dungeons as well
-Back on the topic of the skillbar, you have a limited number of skills you can use at any given time, and can change them whenever you're out of combat
-The number of skills is equal to (paraphrase) "a light and heavy attack with your current weapon that take up the first two slots, a few more spells related to your class, and an ultimate in the last slot".
-The ultimate is used once you gain enough finesse, which is earned by doing well in combat
-You also get a bonus loot chest if you're soloing and max your finesse, and you can also build finesse by comboing with other players
-For example, a rogue can put oil on the ground that a mage can set on fire
-A fighter can also spin in the firestorm a mage puts down, which sends out fireballs
-If you've seen Guild Wars 2 videos, the above will seem familiar
-You can't combo with the abilities of enemy players though, so if an enemy faction player drops an oil slick, you can't set it on fire
-The Thieves Guild and Dark Brotherhood will be presented, but in what form isn't detailed as their contnet is hard to recreate in an MMO setting
-NPCs will try to work together and use player like behavior when fighting you, and (at least to my understanding) have stamina as well
-They want the AI to be good, so instead of enemies in a dungeon sitting around and waiting to be pulled, you will be attacked by the entire room and they will try to react to how you are playing
-The claim was not demo'ed to Game Informer
-You destroy dark anchors to gain reputation with the Fighter's Guild. They are large hooks that fall from the sky pseudorandomly and have Daedric guardians next to them. They are easier to kill with a group, and once destroyed, everyone who participated gets a reputation boost with the Fighter's Guild, and eventually nets you rewards like new skills and abilities.
-The combat model will not be real time due to latency
-The combat is based around a stamina bar which you can use to sprint, block, interrupt, and break incapacitating effects
-Blocking is the primary focus of these abilities, and can do things like stopping the secondary effects of attacks such as an ice spell slowing you
-Stamina also applies to PvP, so stamina management (and wearing down your enemy's stamina) is important, as your crowd control abilities might be on a long cooldown, and if you use them before the enemy player runs out of stamina, they will probably just block the effect
-ZeniMax feels that having the stamina bar will help break down the Holy Trinity as stamina allows you to do things like tank
-However, healing is still a big part of the game
-There is also no aggro mechanic in the game, which is part of the reason stamina blocking and healing exist

And I think that's everything super major. There is still a fair amount about PvP and questing in the article, so feel free to check it out if you're interested in the game.

— Character is centrality, the impossibility of being displaced or overset. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

After reading over the article in the scans, I'm much less interested than before. The frequent mentions of WoW-like gameplay mechanics and lack of any substantial sandbox elements are a big turnoff. There will be no player housing (it's "too hard" to implement they say - even though somehow past MMOs have done it reasonably well (UO, SWG, Everquest II). I had thought with the Elder Scrolls franchise they could have made the ultimate fantasy sandbox MMO, but it seems they are chasing the standard WoW demographic too much for that.

It might be fun for what it is, and to explore for some of the lore aspects but I was hoping for something very different. I have nothing against WoW-like games per se but we have so many of those now, do we really need another?

Anyway, I don't think the single-player ES games will disappear - because apparently this game in no way replaces that experience.

Unfortunately the original source on all this information is a book - which is of course not availible in preview mode through goodle. In the he designer and the concept art is in book too. It sounds like they were in the pre-production process as they were working were relatively early in - since they started this pre-prudction before KOTOR 2 was even out yet. I suppose that made them an easier project to cut too since they were so early on.

They cancelled it when they laid off about half their work force and consoilidated to teams on other projects (Battlefront and a few others I think.)

Wow, that's all new to me. Shame for the missed opportunity. Cheers for that.

—

I'd just like to interject here and point out that I'm not going to say anything to spoil the mood, Chief. I'll just float here and watch. Don't mind me, just sitting here, floating and watching, that's me.